---
title: Why?
authors: vaeringjar
description: Welcome to the The Peers Community, a highly motivated community of people with a strong interest in free software and free culture.
lang: en
---


# Goals

In general, The Peers Community has several long term goals:  

- **Funding.** Peers originally had planned to start as a
  fundraising service for priority and member projects. Not too long
  before Peers started, [Snowdrift.coop] had already begun
  [crowdfunding market research] on a free/libre service.

- <strong>Prioritization.</strong> We plan to follow the example of
  the FSF which has their own <a
  href="https://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects">list of high
  priority projects</a>.  Peers has a list of <a
  href="https://notabug.org/peers/peers-bounty-hunts" title="Project
  Ideas">project ideas</a>, though at this time cannot offer bounties
  in general.

- <strong>Reducing Compromise.</strong> Not everyone leaves
  proprietary software in a single bound, in fact it might take a long
  time to achieve. Watch or listen to a roundtable discussion on the
  need (or lack of need) for <a
  href="https://archive.org/details/CompromiseInFreeSoftware">compromise
  in Free Software</a>. Hosted by Bryan Lunduke with panelists
  including: Richard M Stallman, Aaron Seigo, Swapnil Bhartiya, and
  Stuart Langridge.


# Projects

For specific tasks, please visit the issue trackers for each respective
[Peers project](../#projects).


# Reasons

We have many reasons, in general, why to use free software and to use
decentralized, private/anonymous services, instead of proprietary
software or services.  

**Ethical reason:** we all benefit by sharing knowledge.  

**Personal reason:** with free software, our computers do what we want
them to do! On the other hand, with proprietary software computers are
controlled by other people.  

**Economic reason:** users lock-in. Switching away from proprietary
software can require significant time or financial costs.  

**Convenience:** forced to do what a company thinks best (for example
you must use their software or files type).  

**Privacy:** you become constantly watched by somebody who can do
pretty much whatever they want with your personal data, because you've
"agreed" with the "license agreement" that they can. This is by very
far the most serious argument that people seem not to understand,
because they always say "so what? What I'm doing with their service is
of little value anyway!".  


# Testimonials and Examples

We searched the web for Non-Peers Community people who had shared
their own experiences and expertise.


- Peter Swire testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on
  [encryption and the balance between public safety and
  privacy](https://fpf.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SwireCrypto070715.pdf).
- Drew DeVault explains why we should [use IRC instead of
  slack](https://drewdevault.com/2015/11/01/Please-stop-using-slack.html).
- Alberto of flosspirit went [one year without
  Whatsapp](https://flosspirit.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/1-ano-sin-whatsapp/)
  (en español).
- Whatsapp blocks users from Telegram from [communicating with each
  other](https://web.archive.org/web/20170804100706/https://orat.io/blog/as-of-today-whatsapp-is-blocking-telegram-links/).
- The FSF promotes free software awareness in their video [User
  Liberation](https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/user-liberation-watch-and-share-our-new-video).
- Robin Doherty explains [Why privacy is important, and having
  &quot;nothing to hide&quot; is
  irrelevant](http://robindoherty.com/2016/01/06/nothing-to-hide.html).
- Erik Möller discusses licensing in [The case for Free use: reasons
  not to use a Creative Commons - NC
  license](http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC).
- Dr. Tarek Loubani speaks out how [free software and hardware become
  essential to sovereignty among developing
  nations](https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7246-free_software_and_hardware_bring_national_sovereignty),
  and how we can use them to secure infrastructure and information
  against sophisticated adversaries.
- Actor, comedian, and technologist Stephen Fry summaries the [early
  history of GNU and Linux and the pragmatic reasons for using free
  software](https://gnu.org/fry/).
- Minifree maintains their own [list of how and why proprietary
  payment services restrict user
  freedoms](https://web.archive.org/web/20191011190010/https://minifree.org/paypal/).


# Recommendations

As an alternative to some proprietary communications, and gaming
platforms, we recommend the following.


## Software

For catalogues maintained by other organizations for free software:

- [The Free Software Directory] for software in general
- [FSF PRISM Collection] for secure and private computing
- [GNU free distros] for choosing a free system
- [Libregamewiki] a wiki for games by Han Dao. All documentation under
  dual GNU FDLv1.2 and CC-BY 3.0. Powered by [MediaWiki].
- [PRISM Break] maintains a website to protect users from insecure
  internet usage, specifically related to privacy, citing only free
  software and with all website licensed under the GPL[^PRISM_Break_license].


## Hardware

- [FSF Respects Your Freedom Certification]
- [FreedomBox list of free hardware]


## Highlighted Projects

| Project                  | Description                                                                                                                                          |
|--------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| [Arduino/Genuino],[^1]   | Libre prototyping platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software.                                                                               |
| [F-Droid],[^2]           | Android application package manager                                                                                                                  |
| [Firefox],[^3]           | Free web browser by Mozilla                                                                                                                          |
| [FreedomBox]             | A personal server that protects privacy.                                                                                                             |
| [GIMP],[^4]              | cross-platform image editor                                                                                                                          |
| [gnusocial],[^5]         | Federated social networking/communication software for both public and private communications.                                                       |
| [IceCat],[^6]            | GNU version of the Firefox browser. Also, with the FSF directory list of [IceCat Addons].                                                            |
| [keepass2],[^7]          | A light-weight and easy-to-use password manager.                                                                                                     |
| [Kontalk],[^8]           | End to end encrypted chat, based on XMPP                                                                                                             |
| [LibreOffice],[^9]       | A powerful office suite, including word processor, spreadsheets, and slidedeck maker.                                                                |
| [Minetest],[^10]         | An infinite-world block sandbox game with survival and crafting.                                                                                     |
| [Mumble],[^11]           | A voicechat (VoIP) program originally implemented for gamers written on top of Qt and Speex.                                                         |
| [OpenPhoenux]            | Independent Mobile Tool Community, whose devices run free software.                                                                                  |
| [Replicant],[^12]        | A free fork of Android.                                                                                                                              |
| [VLC Media Player],[^13] | A cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. |


# Footnotes

[^1]:  [Arduino FAQ](https://www.arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ)
[^2]:  [fdroid source](https://gitlab.com/fdroid/fdroidclient)
[^3]:  [firefox source](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Developer_guide/Source_Code/Downloading_Source_Archives)
[^4]:  [gimp source](http://www.gimp.org/downloads/)
[^5]:  [gnusocial source](https://notabug.org/diogo/gnu-social/)
[^6]:  [icecat source](http://git.savannah.gnu.org/cgit/gnuzilla.git)
[^7]:  [keepass source svn](http://sourceforge.net/p/keepass/code/)
[^8]:  [kontalk source](https://github.com/kontalk)
[^9]:  [libreoffice source](https://www.libreoffice.org/download/)
[^10]: [minetest source](https://github.com/minetest/minetest)
[^11]: [mumble source](https://github.com/mumble-voip/mumble)
[^12]: [replicant source](https://git.replicant.us/)
[^13]: [vlc source](https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-sources.html)


[^PRISM_Break_license]: [PRISM Break license](https://github.com/prism-break/prism-break/blob/master/COPYING.md)


---

[Arduino/Genuino]:  https://www.arduino.cc/
[F-Droid]:          https://f-droid.org/
[Firefox]:          https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/
[FreedomBox]:       https://freedomboxfoundation.org/
[GIMP]:             https://www.gimp.org/
[gnusocial]:        https://www.gnusocial.rocks/
[IceCat]:           https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/
[IceCat Addons]:    https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/IceCat
[keepass2]:         https://keepass.info/
[Kontalk]:          https://www.kontalk.org/
[Libregamewiki]:    https://libregamewiki.org/
[LibreOffice]:      https://www.libreoffice.org/
[Minetest]:         https://www.minetest.net/
[Mumble]:           https://www.mumble.info/
[OpenPhoenux]:      https://www.openphoenux.org/
[Replicant]:        https://www.replicant.us/
[VLC Media Player]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/


---

[FSF PRISM Collection]:                    https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Collection:PRISM
[FSF Respects Your Freedom Certification]: https://ryf.fsf.org/
[FreedomBox list of free hardware]:        https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/Hardware
[GNU free distros]:                        https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html
[MediaWiki]:                               https://www.mediawiki.org/
[PRISM Break]:                             https://prism-break.org/
[The Free Software Directory]:             https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page
[Snowdrift.coop]:                          https://snowdrift.coop/
[crowdfunding market research]:            https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfunding
